Montevideo, Uruguay. Jacobo, a 60-year-old man, lives alone since the death of his mother who he had taken care of up until her last day. All he has in his life is a humble sock factory about to go out of business. Marta, 48, Jacobo’s right hand man, has worked for him for twenty years. She’s his most experienced employee, who aside from the other tasks she assumes, looks after Jacobo. Neither of them could live without the other. Nonetheless, their day to day relationship seems cold, until the day Jacobo’s brother arrives.
Graham Chapman wrote and gave voice to his own autobiography in film, through a text taken from a book with the same name which he recorded shortly before his death, making one last meeting of Monthy Python possible, only with the presence of Eric Idle missing. John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam recorded their voices in dialogue with the text read by Chapman and interpret themselves and other characters in a hilarious staging of the hectic life of the only "dead parrot" among the six. A mixture of real image and over a dozen different types of animation, the film tells with more or less truth (we will never know how much) the life and work of Chapman. A funeral eulogy, read by Cleese, is the moment that does more justice to his legacy. (M. M.)
-"Swans sing before they die— ‘t were no bad thingShould certain persons die before they sing."(Samuel Taylor Coleridge) Bigshot is the director’s first animation. He worked every day during 5 months, from script writing to final editing. His ambition is now to make a series with his tiny characters…
The actor Lon Chaney (1893-1930) – son of deaf-mute and handicapped parents – was called The Man of a Thousand Faces because of his extraordinary mutability. He worked not only as an actor, but also wrote scripts, occasionally directed and created all his famous make ups himself. He appeared in 161 movies, all but one of them silent. Most of those films are lost. A Messenger from the Shadows is a surreal re-montage of shots from 46 films that have survived.
Come inside an electric and trendy world!
A group of mexican actors travels to the city of Guimarães to present their theatrical version of Frida Kahlo. Between cultural misunderstandings and the desire of a true encounter, rises the importance of the word and the reason to say it.
Here comes Nau Caxineta that has a lot to say. It has been travelling through the sea for 1 year and 1 day. A film by the 4th grade students of the EB School of Caxinas, Vila do Conde. A free adaptation from the book A Nau Mentireta by Luisa Ducla Soares.
An American writer visits the ancient Portuguese Gothic town of Guimarães for a lecture on the work of Edgar Allan Poe. What would seem like a nice little trip goes terrible wrong when his own paranoia takes over the events that follow…or maybe not.
What happens when we are at 13.103m of altitude and about to fall? Will we have time to think about our lives, what we did and where we went before we hit the ground? A film about a state of mind that affects everyone sooner or later. One thing is certain, when you think about it: the pain of the impact with the ground. (P. C.)
A junkyard in a desolate landscape, an obese woman dressed as a mechanic roasting a pig, a dying man under a scorching sun collapses and becomes her prisoner. In a no man’s land, Patrick Mendes takes us once more to a macabre universe, where the main character, almost terrifying, manipulates her victims. (R. F.)
Eve focuses on the reveries of a young woman who tries to reconcile “real” life pragmatism, essentially translated into the pressure of finding a “job”, and her dreamy vision of what surrounds her. Thus, her main concern is to find a function for Beauty and for herself.
A tile film, made of maritime motifs and variations on the similarities and differences between two men and their desires. There is a law in economics that says that there may be many people wanting and many people offering what is desired, but for an exchange (or a date) to happen, there must be a double coincidence of wants. (João Vieira Torres)
A sensitive and fun film, where the most complicated issues are adressed with the mastery of simplicity. Rodrigo is deaf, but installs sound systems in cars. His t-shirt visually shows the variations of the frequencies of the sound waves. In an ambivalent duality between what goes and comes, Mascaro builds one of the most delicate narratives of this festival. (MV)
The first time I heard of this phenomenon was in Germany. A young, classically trained violinist confessed to me that he dreamed of going to a mythical village among German youth, located in central Africa, which consisted of musicians and where djambé could be learned. Suddenly it seemed so close to me that it made a click. When I was little, in Africa, parents sent children to Germany to learn music. Now it was all upside down. And thankfully. Because things really are upside down. We Europeans don’t see them clearly. The world really has changed. And this is not new. Africa is not like we painted it. And the ones to blame are the Portuguese from the fifteenth century, who destroyed Africans documents to prove that our culture was superior to theirs. (João Viana)
Men, flamingos and gulls gather peacefully in the Tagus estuary. In the distance, cars follow their route on the Vasco da Gama bridge without realizing the movement. The wind blows harder and the buckets fill up, little by little, with clams. (M. C.)
Two rival commanders use their soldiers as messengers and they fall in love.
A day of motorcycle racing on one of the most beautiful circuits in the world: 115 DB.
Sleaford Mods have been called “the voice of Britain”, “Britain’s angriest band” and “The world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band” by Iggy Pop. This film follows them on their two-year journey from Sherwood to chart success.
